Effectiveness of Advertising in Online Social Media

The Internet has evolved from a static portal of information to a dynamic social interaction hub. Increased activities and traffic in social networking sites have made them a desired medium for online advertisements. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of social media as an advertising tool among Malaysian Internet users. The study examines the effectiveness of social media towards creating brand awareness, influencing brand perception, inducing purchase intention, reaching target audience and communicating product information. Three hundred data samples were collected and used in data analysis. Descriptive, reliability and correlation analyses were carried out to analyse the data and to facilitate hypotheses testing. Results reveal that social media is an effective medium for advertisement as it is able to induce purchase intention among target audience. The study discusses more interesting finds of the research and gives recommendation for online advertisers.